Protestors in Rakhine call for removal of military bases so they can return to their village 

Protestors in Rakhine call for removal of military bases so they can return to their village 

Locals say they fear they will be shot or captured by soldiers if they even try to collect rice from Marlar village

Phadu Tun Aung
Published on Jan 21, 2021
The protestors want to at least be allowed to collect food and other supplies from their village (Phadu Tun Aung/Myanmar Now)
The protestors want to at least be allowed to collect food and other supplies from their village (Phadu Tun Aung/Myanmar Now)

About 50 people who were displaced by fighting in Rakhine state staged a protest on Tuesday calling for military bases set up near their village to be removed so they can return home.

The protestors gathered at the Mahar Kan Gyi Shin pagoda in Kyautktaw, where they have been sheltering since fighting broke out between the military and the Arakan Army (AA) at their village of Marlar in March.

They held placards that read, “Remove military stations and stop the expansion of units”; “Give us the freedom to return to our village”, and “Remove the landmines buried near our village”.

While it has been over two months since the fighting stopped in Rakhine – and both sides have begun tentative peace talks – the villagers are scared to return home because soldiers have shot at people who tried to go back to Marlar to collect their belongings, they said. 

 

 

Some 800 people lived in Marlar before it was abandoned last year. 

The displaced villagers have been out of work for ten months. San Aye, one of those who fled Marlar, said she and others are struggling for food and clothes and would like to at least make a trip back to collect rations and other supplies from their homes. 

 

 

“We can’t go to our village to bring our things, because if they see people come they start shooting,” she told Myanmar Now. 

“The military has a station on the hill at the entrance of the village,” said Nu Nu Sein, another protestor. “So we’re scared to enter; we don’t know what they’re going to do.”

The villagers are also scared of being captured and interrogated by soldiers on suspicion of links to the AA.  

At the end of last month the villagers signed a petition asking to be given permission to return to Marlar to collect rice and other crops as well as their cattle. They submitted it to Rakhine’s chief minister, Nyi Pu, but have heard no response, said Zaw Win, who organised the petition. 

“If we could just get our things that would ease some of the difficulties we have at the camps,” he said. “The state government hasn’t responded to our appeal and that’s why we’re protesting.”

Nyi Pu did not answer calls seeking comment. Myanmar Now was unable to reach a military spokesperson for comment on the villagers’ request. 

Over 200,000 people have been displaced in Rakhine and southern Chin state since the fighting broke out just over two years ago. Since the clashes halted in November, more than 80,000 people have returned to their homes, but many others have remained in crowded displacement camps out of fear the fighting will resume. 

Phadu Tun Aung

Phadu Tun Aung is Reporter with Myanmar Now. He is based in Sittwe, Rakhine State.

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A 14-year-old girl from Meiktila with a gunshot wound to the thigh was turned away from multiple hospitals on Wednesday before finally being admitted to the 1,000-bed Naypyitaw General Hospital the following day. 

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Both the Meiktila and Naypyitaw military hospitals told them that they could not admit the girl because she was a civilian and not a soldier; other hospitals refused on the grounds that there were no anaesthetists on duty or that they lacked surgical equipment.  

Thura Lwin Oo, an official from the charity group, said that the Naypyitaw General Hospital urged them to take the girl to another hospital as they were overcrowded with Covid-19 patients.

“If a patient is transferred from one hospital to another, the first hospital must give us a letter of referral, but they just did it verbally. They just told us to go to some other hospitals, so we were forced to waste time on the road all night until dawn,” he said. 

On Thursday morning, Thura Lwin Oo posted about the situation on social media in a plea for help.

“I was afraid she would have to have her leg amputated if we took any longer. Her thigh was no longer bleeding, but I was afraid something would happen because the bullet was still inside,” he said.

On Thursday morning, the charity group was able to make contact again with the general hospital in Naypyitaw. 

“We had to call them again. When we arrived in Naypyitaw last night, no one answered the phone,” Thura Lwin Oo explained on Thursday. “This morning, I called the hospital again and they told me to come back.” 

At the time of reporting, the girl’s condition was stable. 

Since the February 1 coup in Myanmar, health workers have been widely participating in the general strike as part of the Civil Disobedience Movement aimed at toppling military rule. 

Public hospitals and clinics have been operating with fewer staff as a result of the strike, with some health workers providing care privately or in community-run clinics. 

The junta has claimed that military doctors and nurses have been filling in at public hospitals in order to provide regular services. The military council announced on Wednesday that hospitals in Meiktila District were operating as usual. 

Myanmar Now

Myanmar Now is an independent news service providing free, accurate and unbiased news to the people of Myanmar in Burmese and English.
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According to the marine tracking website FleetMon, the ship is operated by ENEOS Ocean Shipmanagement and previously called at Thilawa in April and May from Singapore.

A representative from ENEOS declined to comment on the shipment on Wednesday.

Justice for Myanmar spokesperson Yadanar Maung called on ENEOS to “immediately halt the shipment.”

“It is reckless of ENEOS to ship jet fuel to Myanmar while the illegal military junta is in power, conducting indiscriminate airstrikes, committing war crimes and crimes against humanity with total impunity,” Yadanar Maung told Myanmar Now. 

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Myanmar Now

Myanmar Now is an independent news service providing free, accurate and unbiased news to the people of Myanmar in Burmese and English.
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At least 20 soldiers killed and 1,000 villagers displaced during clash near Sagaing capital 

One resistance fighter was also killed in the clash near Monywa, the local People’s Defense Force said 

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The scene on Wednesday after eight homes were set on fire near the site of an ambush targeting a military truck (Supplied)

Local resistance fighters killed at least 20 soldiers and suffered one fatality during a clash at a village about 16 miles outside the Sagaing Region capital of Monywa on Tuesday.

The fighting started hours after about 50 regime troops arrived at Htayaw Kyin village in Yinmabin Township at around 8am and raided people’s homes, inspected their motorbikes and checked their phones. 

The military flew surveillance drones over the area later in the afternoon. Then at around 3pm, members of the local People’s Defense Force launched an attack against the soldiers. 

Regime troops retreated from the village during the attack but returned half an hour later when they encountered more resistance fighters outside, a PDF fighter told Myanmar Now.

“When the clash began, they went outside the village because they thought there would be fewer of us,” he said. “But when they saw there were a lot of us, they went inside and stationed themselves in the village.” 

The resistance fighters held their fire while the soldiers took cover in the village, allowing residents to flee, he added. “Once we guessed that there was enough time for everyone to be out of the village, we surrounded it.” 

The soldiers took cover in a high school, a monastery and a pagoda as the two sides exchanged fire for about three hours. 

“The pagoda was damaged–some pieces fell off,” the PDF fighter said. “There were even holes in the roofs of buildings in the village.”

Two military trucks came from Monywa to bring reinforcements but PDF fighters attacked them with explosives, causing multiple casualties, the PDF said. 

Survivors from among the reinforcements then went and set fire to eight houses near the site of the ambush, locals said. 

At 6:30pm, PDF fighters retreated, allowing the military to also retreat to a site about two miles from the village.

“Our members who were involved in the fight say at least 20 soldiers were killed in two locations,” the PDF fighter said.

One PDF fighter was shot in the head and killed while two others suffered injuries to their hands and legs, he added. 

The military deployed snipers and mortars during the clash.

“We’ll keep fighting until we succeed. We don’t accept the terrorist military at all, so we’ll just keep going,” the PDF fighter said.

On Wednesday morning, over 200 soldiers arrived at the village and took up posts at the school and the monastery.

“No one dares to go near the village. They’ve already destroyed a home along the road to the village,” a local resident said.

More than 1,000 people from Htayaw Kyin and nearby villages have been displaced by the occupying soldiers.

Villagers in Yinmabin Township were among the first to take up arms against the junta in April. 

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Myanmar Now is an independent news service providing free, accurate and unbiased news to the people of Myanmar in Burmese and English.
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